Saving Time, Saving Your Sanity

by Erica Sadun

Yeah sure, I can record shows off my TiVo and transfer them onto my iPod but it's a pain, frankly. Converting the files to mp4. Loading them into iTunes. Synchronizing. That's why my intentions are so much better than my follow-through. So I was thrilled this evening to discover that the iTunes Music Store started stocking episodes of Dora the Explorer.

Are you familiar with the show? I am. It's an interminably dull program with a saccharine sweet star and an especially annoying resident villain whose main villainy seems to involve theft-by-taking and saying "Oh man" a lot.

Until now in three-year-old terms, my iPod has hosted Maisy the Mouse and the Wiggles. I just haven't had the time or energy to indulge his new Dora passion. I've meant to. Just haven't gotten around to it.

So instead, I plunked a couple of episodes into my cart and bought them. An hour's worth of kid TV for four bucks.

I figure that in the end time-wise and money-wise I'm the winner. I got some new content to distract him when I need to do adult things on the go and I spent the download/convert/load time playing bouncy ball with him instead.

I think it's a bargain.

2 Comments

adamsj
2006-03-12 04:40:29

My daughter was two years and nine months yesterday, and she's just started watching Dora the Explorer. I'm a bit surprised how much I hated it--it's even worse than Barney! I say this as someone who found great enjoyment in places I never expected, like the Teletubbies, and who thinks Elmo in Grouchland wears almost as well as Toy Story.

What surprised me about Dora was how much it seems designed to teach kids to point and click. That came pretty natural (sigh) to Quincy--I'm not sure it needs taught.

Randal L. Schwartz
2006-03-12 23:35:13

"I can record shows off my TiVo and transfer them onto my iPod".

Yeah sure, brag won't ya. That requires either a series 1 TiVo that has been hacked (I have a series 2), or a windows box (which I'll never own). {sigh}

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